Sam Warburton - Lions Triumphant: The Captains Story

Also by Sam Warburton

Refuse to be Denied

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright 2013 by Sam Warburton

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ISBN: 978-1-47111-311-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-47111-314-7
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-47111-312-3

Typeset in the UK by M Rules
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Sunday, 21 April 2013.

It is a quiet Sunday afternoon in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, as I recover from playing for the Cardiff Blues the night before, in a match we had lost 24-6 to the Scarlets at Parc-y-Scarlets in Llanelli. I am at my parents house with my fiance Rachel. My mum, Carolyn, is on the phone to a friend. My own mobile phone is charging on the table in the kitchen. I hear it ring. Rather lethargically I go to it, thinking it is just a mate calling. I dont get there in time before it rings off.

I look at the screen. Missed Call Gats, it says. That means that I have just missed a call from Warren Gatland, the head coach of the British and Irish Lions. Crikey! I havent had a call from him for ages. This is no idle Sunday afternoon phone call.

All sorts of things start racing through my head. My heart starts pounding. This is it, I think. This is about the captaincy of the Lions. It has to be. It is only nine days until the official squad announcement, after all. I knew that Warren was going to make a phone call to the player who was going to be captain of the Lions, because I had read that he had said that in the press. Hed commented that he had decided in his own mind on the person he was going to ask, but he was going to wait a while before doing so.

Ironically, around the time he had said this, I had met my agent Derwyn Jones for lunch at El Puertos restaurant in Penarth Marina, Cardiff, and we had bumped into Warren, who was there meeting the Lions strength and conditioning coach Adam Beard. Warren told me, after a brief handshake and hello, that he would be in touch soon, but he didnt say exactly what it was regarding.

Warrens comment had been at the back of my mind during the lunch when eventually Derwyn was the one to say: Do you think its regarding the Lions captaincy? It was what we had both been thinking for an hour, but neither of us had said anything. But the flip side of this was that there were obviously a few players in contention. So I also thought that he might want to call those guys who were close to being captain to tell them the disappointing news.

So, either way, this call had to be about the captaincy. Did I think it was going to be good news? Well, if you had asked me a month before the announcement to put some money on it, I would not have put that money on myself. Id have put it on Brian ODriscoll, if Im honest. My parents had asked me that very question, and Brian had been the answer that Id given them.

But then there had been a story in the press just a few days before that some of the bookmakers had stopped taking bets on me to be Lions captain. Apparently, Ladbrokes had had a lot of money placed on me, so they had suspended betting on my being captain and as a result slashed the odds of my starting the first Test as Lions captain in Brisbane on 22 June from 3-1 to 4-7.

Or so I was told anyway. I have to admit that I didnt understand that at first, because I dont bet. I truly didnt know whether suspending the betting was a good or a bad thing. But it was my dad who texted me to tell me about it. I said to him: What does that mean? He replied it must mean: Theres some inside information which has got out, or something like that.

Interesting, I thought. Apparently, bookmakers have eyes and ears everywhere, so I started thinking there might be some truth in it. But at that stage I didnt know. I really didnt. It was then still 11 days away from the official team announcement.

After that Scarlets match I was put up for press duties, and inevitably I was asked about the fact that the bookmakers had closed betting on my becoming Lions captain. I can honestly say, on my mothers life, I have no inkling of anything, I said. The players are often the last people to find out about these things, so Ill just keep my head down for the Blues. One minute its [Paul] OConnell, the next minute its ODriscoll, the next minute its myself. Its difficult from a players point of view. The decision is completely out of my hands. Theres not much I can do, really, apart from wait for the announcement. Everybody is texting me, asking whats going on, which is really frustrating, because I genuinely dont know.

The press asked me if I wanted to be captain, which was not as silly a question as it might sound, given that I have always been a rather reluctant captain. And remember, I hadnt been captain of Wales in the last two matches of the 2013 Six Nations that I started against Scotland and England.

Its a no-brainer, I said. Its the biggest honour for any player. Its mind-blowing when you think about it, to have that accolade. Everybody who has done it has been a legend and its flattering to think you are in contention for it. I still dont see myself as one of those players, really. Its quite strange, especially at twenty-four. If somebody had told me when I was watching the last Lions tour [in 2009] that I could be in this situation as a potential candidate, I would have laughed. Obviously, its an absolutely massive honour.

Everybody is excited and looking forward to the squad announcement and whats going to happen. Im still in the dark about that. Fingers crossed for all the boys. Players still arent talking about it to each other. Honestly, they really dont want to talk about it. Its quite strange, its quite funny. But hopefully theres a decent contingent from the Blues and Wales.

Its in the back of your mind now, because it is getting very close to selection. You are desperate to go on tour. You are thinking about it quite a bit. I just have to keep my head down and keep my fingers crossed. Ill sit tight for the next few days and see what happens.

That had been the night before. I probably wasnt going to have to sit tight or wait for a few days now. I probably wasnt going to have to wait for a few minutes. This phone call I was about to make could change my life. But what was Gats going to say to me?

Id thought about the Lions so much already up to that point. Id discussed it a lot with my family, and I dont mind admitting that I would get quite emotional when talking about it. I remember having dinner with Rachel a couple of years before and she suddenly asked me what was my greatest ambition in rugby. We dont usually talk about rugby when were out, but on this occasion I became very emotional. I told her that my greatest ambition was to play for the Lions. It is the pinnacle. Thats how much it meant to me. Thats how desperate I was to get picked.